Is a Denon DVD-5000 worth buying ?

I've owned a 5000 for nearly 2 years. I bought it used on ebay, couple months old, from a pawn shop. I've had zero trouble with it and no complaints. Vidoe wise, it does not do progressive scan. It does do a fine job of video on my 40" Mitiz direct view when calabrated with the Video Essetntials DVD. For auido, it has HDCD, which is a plus. It also has a standby feature so that you never have to turn the power off, and the DACs stay warm. Several times mine has been shut off accidentally, or because of a power surge, and it always takes about 3 days to reach its audio peak again. I've never checked on how long it takes to reach video peak. I use it primarily for CDs. For critical listening I prefer analogue through my Oracle limited edition Premier IV with a Ortofon MC5000 MC cartridge and ortofon step up transformer. How does it sound? very good, really. About 6 weeks ago I bought an Art DI/O and paid Boulder Cable Company to modify it, and bought Boulder's full power supply complete with Bybee filters in the power supply. That's about $600 worth of DAC. And it upsamples. The HarmonicDiscord.com site has a lot of good to say about this DAC. So I bought one to play with to see how close to analogue it will come.

I use the Denen 5000 as a transport. When I was first installing the Art, I accidentally unplubed the Denon. I A/B ed with the same line cables the signal using the Denon's and the Art's DAC. Well, the Denon stunk -- brittle and hard to listen to, because it had just been accidentally unplugged. And that's all it takes. I've played the Art nearly 24/7 since then. It's well burned in. It seems to have a hair more ease and air than the Denon. But basically I'm disappointed in the Art. I've not decided if I'll keep it yet. I've give it one more very careful listen this week end and then decide. What this exercise has taught me is that the Denon 5000 as a CD player is a very good value, I think, at anything under $1000. In fact I've checked on ebay during the last three weeks and they seem to be selling for between $400 and a high of $650. I think the Denon is a steal at all of those prices. There's some old (2+ years) reviews that praise the audio on this machine that lead me to buy it. I'm a needle disk guy who wanted a good DVD player and even more so a better CD player in the same package. But I'd only had cheap <$500 CD players to compare it too. So I've been very happy with the Denon. It's really heavy, built like a tank, good remote, doesn't eat batteries, and has a great owner's manual.

But if you need progressive scan . . . it's not for you.

Hi Mike. I'm looking for a 5000. If you decide to pass on
it please consider sending me the info on where to buy it. Thanks. Joe

I'll chime in on the side of skipping it. I had one that was sent back for repairs twice also, like prpixel, and it still didn't work. By the time I got around to addressing the issue again, it was out of warranty and just not worth fixing.

Good luck whatever you decide! Mike.

I can second the Denon 1600, I have one and love it. It also has nice Burr Brown audio DAC's to help with your audio question. Can't comment on the 5000. I had the 3000, and the picture quality wasn't even in the same league as the 1600 when displaying 480p. If your TV can handle progressive output or you are upgrading soon, my suggestion is to go with a progressive DVD player.

Probably not. Check out the Denon DVD-1600 DVD-V and DVD-A player. It has a wonderful progressive scan output thanks to the Faroudja DCDi™ de-interlacer with 3-2 pulldown processing. The unit can be had for about $400.

I owned a dvd5000 for about 26 months (purchased new). In that time it was completely rebuilt twice. Luckily the repairs were covered under warranty ($1300.00 & $1700.00). It died for the third time about two months ago. It was no longer under warranty and did not think it was worth the repair cost (estimated at $1500.00). Sold it as is on ebay for $325.00. This model had a lot of problems; saw many non-functioning units for sale on Ebay with the same problem mine had.

Now, as for the picture - incredible for non-progressive! Went to my local dealer and he said that a current cheapo sony unit would have a better picture than then Denon. The sony looked like video tape compared to the denon (even the wife noticed the difference; that's say something). Ended up buying a Denon DVD9000 to replace it. Had reservations about reliability but wanted a great picture and sound.